This Day in History

 In 1741, Vitus Bering made his first landfall in Alaska on Kayak Island.

 In 1934, two Army observation planes made the first landing on the airfield in Juneau.

 In 1937, the Coast Guard Cutter Haida arrived at Juneau to take permanent station.

 In 1946, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management was established.

 In 1969, Anchorage area residents watched live television coverage of the launch of Apollo 11, through a mobile satellite ground station installed for the occasion by the Department of Defense.

In the nation

 In 1862, David G. Farragut became the first rear admiral in the United States Navy.

 In 1935, the first parking meters were installed in Oklahoma City.

 In 1945, the United States exploded its first experimental atomic bomb, in the desert of Alamogordo, N.M.

 In 1957, Marine Maj. John Glenn set a transcontinental speed record by flying a jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds.

 In 1957, the science-fiction film "The Fly" opened in San Francisco.

 In 1964, in accepting the Republican presidential nomination in San Francisco, Barry M. Goldwater said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and that "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

 In 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, Fla., on the first manned mission to the surface of the moon.

 In 1973, during the Senate Watergate hearings, former White House aide Alexander P. Butterfield publicly revealed the existence of President Nixon's secret taping system.